Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

By spending more time educating your board on your business you get more valuable advice from them. It consists of a highly intelligent and opinionated founder – Nick Halstead. So what are Rob’s secret hacks that he didn’t spill in his blog post? . .” His argument is as follows.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. It got me thinking about the advice that I often give to new VCs. I don’t want any formal pitches. It’s exhausting. Perhaps unsustainable. Lines, Not Dots.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

On my blog I’ve been hesitant to take the topic head on. But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? In it she observes that only 3% of the comments on this blog are from women. Please watch this.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

” The ultimate measure of success for a journalist is viewership so if nobody cares about your shitty little company and the story you’re trying to pitch then the journalist doesn’t want to publish. The major battle for press is a battle for “mindshare” and it’s exactly the reason I blog. I am a VC.

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mix-use advice VC technology 389

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 5, 2012

Most conversations don't end in funding or even a follow up meeting, so your aim should be to get specific, helpful advice that moves you forward. What is it about me that makes you want to pitch me? 5) Aim for me to hear about you before you pitch. Are you blogging really insightful takes on your industry?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

If I had to put a number on it I’d say 1 in 20 pitches – maybe 1 in 30 – are by an entrepreneur who comes across as truly passionate about her project. His blog is even called SaaStr (a bit too close to Suster if you ask me ;-)). Startup Advice'

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

So my simple advice is to start PR as early as possible (and certainly earlier than most of your investors will advise) when you have your head around your product plans and are well into execution (or ready to launch) precisely because your recruiting, seed funding and initial user base may depend on it. In a startup this is a mistake.

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pitching media advice venture capital 319

Entrepreneur's Handbook

APRIL 24, 2021

Advice for non-technical founders for finding a serious CTO for your startup Finding a co-founder is hard work. Finding a technical co-founder is even harder. Yet, the benefits of having a technical co-founder make it all worthwhile. A good co-founder will serve as a powerful force multiplier.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 23, 2011

They get pitched by so many blowhards that more genuine people who aren’t in it for just a story stand out from the crowd. Obviously you should have somebody that helps you research journalists, gets you meetings, pitches stories, helps prep you for interviews & helps make sure your writing is cogent.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can.

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advice VC pitching entrepreneurs 361

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

Detail Orientation / Hands On – One of the easiest ways to rule out people who are pitching to me is when they don’t know the details of their business. I once had a startup team pitch me for an investment where the President of the company led the first call with me on his own. There are easy tell-tale signs.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 15, 2010

He wrote an excellent blog post on this topic. It was also great to spend time with the founder of TechStars , David Cohen , who will head up Open Angel, Boulder. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Pitching VCs Start-up Advice Startup Advice VC Industry. They deserve more credit.

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advice angel investing entrepreneurs pitching 254

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . So I organized a team dinner with all four of my partners and all three of their founders. It’s one of my favorite blog posts. We assumed they would take our advice and upgrade. I HATE LOSING.

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consulting advice collaboration VC 328

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JUNE 19, 2024

My first pitch was not to investors or potential clients; it was to my fiancée, convincing her to delay our wedding plans until Equifund was up and running — a promise that took significantly longer than the anticipated six months to fulfill. and more articles from the EO blog. I also did not have a business partner.

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financing finance entrepreneurship mentorship 255

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . So I organized a team dinner with all four of my partners and all three of their founders. It’s one of my favorite blog posts. We assumed they would take our advice and upgrade. I HATE LOSING.

consulting 333

consulting advice collaboration VC 333

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 16, 2024

You get advice from people who have been where you are without worrying about damaging your reputation. Unlike other business owner communities, people aren’t joining to pitch you on their company’s products or services, so you can build real relationships and help one another. and more articles from the EO blog.

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peer-to-peer accelerator leadership entrepreneurs 227

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 15, 2023

Raising funding is no easy feat, especially for first-time founders. You need a solid business plan, traction to demonstrate market fit, and the skills to pitch effectively. Yet founders often trip up when it comes to investor relations — the ongoing communication and relationship building after that first check clears.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There’s too much PR and too many tech blogs and too many newsletters and aggregators and Twitter summarizers to even try to catch everything that’s going on and equally there’s so much noise that it becomes harder to be heard. My general advice is to do less. The best of the best in our industry are feeling it, too.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2012

Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. It’s why I still randomly meet up with people I’ve met on Twitter or this blog. Or riding a crazy party bus and sitting next to Aaron Batalion the co-founder & CTO of Living Social. Nom nom nom. Office Space. We’ll see.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2011

VC Blogger Fanboy This geek reads all the blogs religiously and is a lean startup ninja. Seems like a good pick, except that every piece of advice given comes from their own experience--experience that is all during a a single up cycle. By the way, do you know who (surprisingly) *doesn't* fit into this catagory? Check it out.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital. They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. What are the most common mistakes in first pitch? and Half.com.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 5, 2024

Here are the top blog posts EO published on Inc.com in 2023: 1. Set Goals Like Google: Why OKRs Surpass Other Goal-Setting Methods for Entrepreneurs Eric Crews (EO Boston), founder and CEO of management consulting firm Crews & co., My advice to all entrepreneurs: Don’t shy away from hard conversations.

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consulting entrepreneurial ecosystem real estate entrepreneurs 211

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Brad on blogging. How did you start blogging? “My My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

It is with this backdrop that I was really happy to learn from my friend Ethan Anderson (HBS alum & founder of RedBeacon) about an awesome program at HBS run by Tom Eisenmann called Launching Technology Ventures. The idea that the course asks students to write public blog posts is a testament to its more modern teaching style.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

All of this is covered in more detail on the TWiVC video above (and much of it is covered in text on this blog on the “ Raising VC &# tab). It can be a good strategy to bring just the CEO because 1-on-1 rapport is easier to build but if you have equally strong co-founders bring them. What should be in the deck?

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The Zapier Blog

JUNE 19, 2025

Why this Facebook ad works : Feature-forward messaging : "Record your pitch once—share it anytime" in the ad copy , as well as the video itself, makes the value of Canva Recordings instantly clear. Canva This video ad for Canva presentations shows how you can record yourself and add it to your deck with just a few clicks.

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NZ Entrepreneur

MARCH 27, 2025

A targeted, well-researched pitch to the right journalist at the right publication is far more effective. It could be about a founder who saw a gap in the market, a product that solves a unique problem, or a company culture that sets it apart. Building relationships with key journalists by engaging with their work before pitching.

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media leadership strategy pitching 86

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 6, 2020

My husband and I are also pitching a second Weird Homes Tour book with all of the cities in it. Chelle Neff, founder of Urban Betty, shares a tour of one of her salon locations in Austin, Texas. It was a powerful moment, and he gave some great advice to us that day. What’s next? We charge a small (optional) Eco Fee of $2.50

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sustainability peer-to-peer consulting entrepreneurs 211

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 17, 2018

Peter Gabauer, an EO Accelerator participant in Brisbane, Australia, is founder and CEO of Table and Desk , which provides custom furniture in 14 days. Peter Gabauer (pictured at left), an EO Accelerator participant from Brisbane, Australia, and CEO of Table and Desk, was awarded US$250,000 for his pitch to the Angel-Sharks.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

APRIL 9, 2019

He’s a renowned speaker, author, founder and revolutionary who loves working with changemakers who have the desire—and capacity—to make things better. I hear way too many entrepreneurs pitch stuff that I don’t understand—and I’m sure they don’t understand either. Pascal was a tech entrepreneur before there was even a web browser.

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entrepreneurs leadership media entrepreneurship 130

OnStartups

MARCH 24, 2021

Which, as it turns out is a highly underrated thing (more on that in another blog post). My thesis was: I’d get to brainstorm and strategize with the founders, but then I’d get to hand their baby back to them and go back to my (so called) life. I pitched a startup called “HubSpot”, which ended up being one of the ideas chosen.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

This was the shared dream of Rick Fiery and Tom Bergeron, the co-founders of InventiveLabs , a multi-track research center that supports Inventives, people who have non-traditional learning styles and are looking to make their passions a reality. What advice would you give other aspiring, young entrepreneurs?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

It was a “disappearing text app” where the founders told me that they named the company because the idea came from how Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife because all of his mistresses had evidence that he cheated because they saved text messages from him. If you swing at every pitch you’ll end up with a lot more losers.

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Startup Grind

AUGUST 13, 2018

Pitch your startup for an opportunity to meet with Floodgate. Who is one of your founders you think we should watch? Nancy Lublin, CEO of Loris.ai, is definitely a founder to watch. Is this a founder I want to work with for ten years? Favorite business book, blog, podcast? Nancy is a natural creator of movements.

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Innovation 2 Enterprise

MARCH 26, 2024

In celebration of Women’s History Month, i2E is proud to shine a spotlight on two remarkable women founders who have not only engaged with i2E’s programs and resources but have also left an indelible mark in their respective industries. I still regularly meet with i2E for advice as I’m building my company.

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entrepreneurs innovation advice construction 105

Angel Capital Association

JULY 23, 2020

By: Lance Cottrell, North Bay Angels Editors Note - The following article shares points from one investor to founders. Or, do you have additional advice for founders who pitch to your group? I answer more questions and provide more coaching about investor pitches than anything else. Valuation if set.

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